PUBLIC PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
A total of 296,439 visitors attended the museum and art gallery during 2003-2004, an increase of some 40,000 visitors over the previous year.
15 exhibitions were developed in house, the major ones being:
- Eclectica - 160 years of Collecting
- Hobart Town and Van Diemens Land Watercolours
- Photographs - Images by Russell Young, amateur photographer
- Flotsam and Jetsam - Collections, Travel and Colonialism.
Major exhibitions developed externally included:
- Max Ernst - Books and Prints.
Exhibitions developed in house that toured nationally and internationally included:
- John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque
- Creating a Gothic Paradise - Pugin at the Antipodes
- Breaking the Ice - Antarctic Watercolours and Etchings by Jorg Schmeisser.
Collaborative exhibitions included:
- Thylacine Editions - in conjunction with the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Federal Hotels and Resorts and Arts@work
- Macquarie Island - in conjunction with Mid Winter Festival
- Times of Reflection - in conjunction with the Australian and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Cape Barren Island Primary School, Riawunna Aboriginal Education Unit, Margate Primary School, Aboriginal Health Service and community members
- City of Hobart Art Prize - in conjunction with Hobart City Council
- Virtualis Antarctica - in conjunction with Antarctic Division, an exhibition of stunning Antarctic photographic images by Australian photographer Wayne Papps (deceased).
COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS
Major acquisitions during 2003-04 were:
- 35 Botanical drawings and 12 architectural and landscape sketches by William Archer (Australia 1820 - 1874)
- A painting entitled Four of the Children of Joseph Tice Gellibrand c1835 by an unknown artist but attributed to Benjamin Duterrau
- A painting entitled Inhaler 2004 by the Tasmanian artist Richard Wastell (b1974)
- A sculpture entitled Nuclear Family 1994 by Tasmanian artist Bill Yaxley (b1943)
- Skull and skeleton of a rare Shepeards beaked whale
- Skull of a Cuviers beaked whale
- Two separate collections of Tasmanian Aboriginal stone artefacts.
Further information can be found on the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery web site at http://www.tmag.tas.gov.au.